Inside the insane, dangerous lives of Alaskan crab fishermen who work 20-hour days in a ‘constant barrage of storms’

Corey Arnold/Fish-Work: Bering Sea

• Being a crab fishermen on Alaska’s Bering Sea is a very dangerous job with back-breaking labor and 20-hour work days.
• In 2002, photographer Corey Arnold decided to give it a try. He ended up doing it for nearly a decade and brought his camera along for the many weeks at sea.
• The Bering Sea is constantly suffering storms which make the work even more difficult and dangerous.

In 2002, photographer Corey Arnold left behind a poor economy in San Francisco and headed up to Alaska to try his luck at his longtime passion of fishing.

Arnold, who had worked summers during college on a salmon boat in Alaska, signed on to the f/v Rollo, a crabbing boat that fishes in the dangerous Bering Sea.

While working long, strenuous hours on the Rollo, Arnold often stole away with the captain’s permission to grab his camera and photograph the crew and the ship. Arnold eventually put together “Fish Work: Bering Sea,” a documentation of his seven adventurous and dicey crab seasons aboard the Rollo.

Arnold shared a selection of the photos with us here, and you can check out the rest in the book or on his website.

There are two annual crabbing seasons in the Bering Sea, King crab and Opilio crab. During each one- to two-month season, Arnold went on numerous trips crabbing. He went on one or two trips during King season, and three to five during Opilio season.

Corey Arnold/Fish-Work: Bering Sea

The Bering Sea, located between far east Russia and Alaska, has a unique interaction of strong currents, sea ice, and powerful weather patterns. It is one of the most dangerous places to fish in the world. Arnold calls the sea “a continuous storm.”

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The 107-foot f/v Rollo is equipped to handle tumultuous seas. Average seas in the Bering Sea have around 10- to 20-foot waves, but Arnold has witnessed massive 50-foot waves and the Rollo’s captain, Eric Nyhammer, has witnessed 80-foot waves. Arnold rarely saw his captain get nervous, but when he does, the crew knows it’s time to worry.

Corey Arnold/Fish-Work: Bering Sea

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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